


Te Amo Ergo Sum

by Capramagus



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Conversation, Existentialism, Love, M/M, Truth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-18
Updated: 2014-01-18
Packaged: 2018-01-09 04:11:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1141265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Capramagus/pseuds/Capramagus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This story takes place between episodes 33 and 34. Cecil tries to explain to Carlos who he really is. This is a stand-alone story, but involves ideas that I may incorporate into other stories later. The title is Latin, paraphrased from Rene Descartes, and means "I love you, therefore I am."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Te Amo Ergo Sum

“Carlos, do you know who I am?” Cecil asked.

Carlos looked up from his clipboard, which he’d taken to do some data analysis while they watched TV after dinner. “You’re Cecil,” Carlos said.

“That’s my _name_ ,” Cecil said, with the slow, patient calm that meant he was saying something important, but difficult to communicate - or, perhaps, un-approved. “But beyond that. Who am I? Do you know?”

Carlos rested the clipboard on his knee. He wondered if this was the beginning of another of his boyfriend‘s existential crises. He didn‘t mind, of course. Any line of inquiry is a potentially worthwhile investigation. He preferred to ponder more testable hypotheses, but that was an aesthetic preference.

He contemplated the question. Empirically he knew that Cecil was some creature, presumably human but one can never be sure, very intelligent but with an... undisciplined mind. Subjectively, he knew that Cecil was the man he loved. After a long moment trying to put words to the ineffability of identity, Carlos gave up and resorted to the nickname, an honorific if you will, that people in town occasionally used to refer to their favorite news presenter.

“You’re the Voice of Night Vale,” he said, shrugging.

“No.”

No? Carlos turned to look Cecil in the eye. Although the topic had not come up before, he’d always assumed - admittedly without evidence - that Cecil was proud of this nickname. After all, he was proud of his station, and proud of his community’s pride in him, and he loved his job enough to put up with dangers and horrors above and beyond those faced by ordinary citizens. Carlos mentally chastised himself for making the assumption. Unsupported assumptions are the enemy of good science, after all.

What should he answer, though? Rather than to ramble on about Cecil‘s presumed humanity, intelligence, et cetera, Carlos decided to make further observation before proposing alternative hypotheses.“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m afraid I don’t know this one.”

Cecil turned to face the television, but clearly wasn’t seeing the show on it. He spoke quietly, his volume just below that of the show they were not watching, so that only Carlos could hear and hopefully not the many agencies and organizations that were no doubt eavesdropping with hidden recording equipment. “I am that - the Voice of Night Vale - sometimes. At work, mostly. While broadcasting, but other times too. When I’m relaying others’ messages. When I’m saying what needs to be said, whether I agree with it or not.” A tinge of bitterness colored that last bit. “I try to be unbiased. I am a reporter. But I’m just a reporter, and there are so many forces who will fight bitterly against the truth in this world. What happens when the news I have to report goes against everything I know to be true in my heart? What if the _truth_ is biased? I have to walk the line somehow, but it’s always difficult. Most of the time, it’s impossible.”

Carlos watched Cecil speak, barely following what he was saying but understanding, on some deep level, what he meant.

“At the beginning, I didn’t realize how hard it would be. I was so young and naive, I thought I could trust everything that was said on the radio - so of course I thought I would be able to tell the truth. But again and again, for one reason or another, I had to lie. I was given press releases that were obviously false. I was asked to stop talking about things that management didn’t approve of. Sometimes I was even told what opinions I should have. I didn’t want to lose my job, but I didn’t want to lie. So I eventually forgot what was true, so I could lie without guilt.”

Carlos had set down his clipboard and was frowning as he listened to the story. As a seeker of truth himself, he did not approve of lies, but he sensed that this was no mere confession of wrongdoing.

Cecil continued. “I lost myself in the job, without even realizing. I don’t know when it happened, exactly. Not long after I began working at the station. Maybe even during my internship, so long ago. At some point, the man reporting the news was no longer me. Not the _same_ me. He just repeated everything he was told, without questioning it. He sided with the government, always. He sided with station management, always. He sided with authorities even when his own eyes betrayed them. When two authorities were in conflict, he chose the more powerful of the two.”  
Cecil’s voice quieted almost to a whisper, and he closed his eyes as he continued. “I remember the day that I realized what was happening,” he said. “It was a few weeks after _you_ arrived in town, Carlos.”

Carlos’s eyes widened. He hadn’t realized he would be a part of this story. He blushed from the unexpected attention.

“I had lost so much of my identity by then,” Cecil said. “I was almost gone. I was just a voice, and that voice said only other people’s words. Other people’s opinions. Sometimes, faceless, nameless entities’ opinions. I was just the Voice of Night Vale. The voice of the town itself. Even when I spoke for myself, it wasn’t really me - it was some pale, hollow copy of who I had been. My heart wasn’t in it. When I listen to recordings of those old broadcasts... I don’t know who’s talking. It’s like I’m hearing someone else speak.”

“But one day... I was out in the field, doing interviews, gathering news. The usual. And I found out something that shocked me more than any of the horrors I’d seen up to that point. Not everyone in town likes you, Carlos.”

In spite of the seriousness, Carlos couldn’t help but chuckle softly. Cecil glanced at him and cracked a smile as well. “Of course not everyone likes me,” Carlos said gently.

“Yes, as hard as it is for me to admit, it makes sense to me... now. But back then, when I was still... lost? It was huge. You were so beautiful. So perfect. So... perfect. How could anyone not love you instantly and unquestioningly? I had assumed everyone loved you. I had even said so on the air. It was obvious. But the truth betrayed me, as it always does in the end. Not everyone loved you. Not all of Night Vale. Just... me.

“This revelation that I loved you, and that that was _my_ love and mine alone, reminded me that I am not just the Voice of Night Vale. I have an identity of my own. That love came as a guiding light through the darkness, and I followed it back to myself.

“It took time. I had to spend months sorting out my feelings, remembering who I was and what I believed in the face of all the official facts and mandated opinions I was still forced to parrot, day in day out. I spent my days immersed in official station business and my nights staring into the void asking what everything means, what anything even _is_. I got rather existential. For a while, I questioned the existence of anything and everything. It started to annoy the interns that I kept doubting their existence whenever they left the room - although, to be fair, one can never be too sure when it comes to interns.

“It scared me. When I realized that so much of what I was certain about was so obviously, ridiculously _false_ , I chose not to be certain of anything. Sometimes it showed, even while broadcasting, and that got me in trouble. I made up lies to cover up my uncertainty. I even claimed to have Lyme disease. But in time, I started to figure out what was true, starting with my love for you.

“You were the only thing I felt comfortable talking about on the air, so I did. I talked about you whenever I felt scared or confused or doubtful... which was often.”

“I noticed,” Carlos said, rolling his eyes slightly but still smiling. Cecil smiled as well.

“Now it is as though there are two of me. Not a double, like what happened in the sandstorm...”

“Yes, my team is still working on figuring that one out...”

“Instead, this is like two people in one body. There’s me, and there’s the other one. The one who just says everything he’s told to report, and doesn’t question it. I admit, that other me is pretty useful. He makes sure I keep my job and don’t get arrested. But I have to keep him reigned in. I don’t want him to take over completely again.”

“What do you think is the nature of this... duality?” Carlos asked, curious in spite of himself. “Perhaps I should investigate this phenomenon.”

Cecil laughed. “And that is what I love about you,” he said. “You’re the exact opposite. You’re the same person no matter where you are or what you’re doing. Carlos the scientist.” Cecil grinned lovingly. “You even wear that lab coat everywhere you go.” He reached over and stroked the sleeve of the coat, and Carlos felt the lightness of the touch through the thick fabric. “All my closest friends have been that way, you know. I’m attracted to that in people. Maybe it’s envy, maybe it’s admiration, but the people I really come to care about most are all their own selves: uncompromising, honest, no matter what. Earl, Josie, Dana...” Cecil’s voice trailed off. There was a tear in his eye; he wiped it away and then looked at his glistening fingertip as though it confused him.

Carlos took that hand in his own and held it until Cecil had gathered himself. It was a long, silent moment. When Cecil spoke again, the sadness was there, but a bright touch of hope as well.

“I hope this isn’t too weird for you,” he said.

“Not at all. Come to think of it,” Carlos mused, "most people are... compartmentalized. Even outside of Night Vale. Most people act one way at work, and another way at home. I never quite got the point of it.” He shrugged. “I love being a scientist. Why would I ever _not_ be one?”

  
“And I love being the Voice of Night Vale,” Cecil said. “Even when I’m just repeating blatant propaganda, I love it. It’s the best job in the world. I just... think I should try to be more honest sometimes. A reporter is supposed to be a champion for truth, and I think I’m getting better at being that.” Cecil paused, and then his tone became darker, more ominous. “I think a day is coming when I will need to be better at it than I ever have been.”

There was another long quiet moment. Carlos thought for a while about Cecil’s show, remembering it differently in light of this revelation. “Cecil?” he said after a while.

“Yes?”

“When I’m listening...” he tried not to blush. Even now that they had been together for a few months, it felt odd to admit that he listened to Cecil’s show every day. “How will I know whether you’re being yourself? Being honest?”

Cecil sighed. “I can’t be too obvious about it,” he said. “It has to look relatively seamless. You - all the listeners, really - will have to just pay attention. Or ask me in private. You could just do that.”

Carlos grinned and settled back into the couch cushions. Cecil did too, wrapping one arm around Carlos’s shoulders.

“There is another thing,” Cecil said quietly, a smile in his voice. “Just a... fun fact about Night Vale Community Radio. Did you know that station bylaws mandate that the traffic report must be truthful and uncensored? Some safety-minded policymaker must have thought that accident prevention was more important than municipal propaganda.” He chuckled at the absurdity.

Carlos almost dismissed this information as unimportant. Then, a moment late, it hit him. He jerked upright and looked at Cecil, who was watching television with a small, self-satisfied smile.

”You mean... you can say whatever you want?” Carlos asked.

“Not entirely,” Cecil admitted. “They can still fire me. Or detain me indefinitely in the abandoned mine shaft outside of town. Or re-educate me again.” Cecil shuddered at the thought of that last one. “But I do have a little more freedom, if I at least occasionally mention roads or cars or... travel of some sort. The important thing is, while the report is being aired, they can’t stop me. They can’t cut me off. And most importantly, they c _an’t ask me to lie_. So I’ve been... experimenting. It could be helpful in an emergency, especially if I can manage to get the listeners attuned to that segment.”

“I see.” Carlos thought on this. “As much as I approve of experimentation,” he said, “do be careful, will you?”

“I will... try.”

They both directed their attention back to the television, which to outside observers they had appeared to be watching intently through the entire conversation. Passive, silent, ignorant, harmless. For now.


End file.
